BANDUNG, Telkom University – The Alliance of State-Owned Enterprises Universities (APERTI BUMN) held a national webinar entitled The Future of Research and Innovation for Advanced Indonesia. This event took place online via Zoom and was broadcast on Telkom University’s YouTube channel, Wednesday (12/1).
With Dr. Laksana Tri Handoko as the head of the National Research and Innovation Agency of the Republic of Indonesia (BRIN RI), this event was attended by 9 universities that are members of APERTI BUMN: Telkom University (Tel-U), Pertamina University, PLN Institute of Technology (IT PLN), University International Semen Indonesia (UISI), College of Logistics Management (STIMLOG), IT Telkom Surabaya (ITT Surabaya), Pos Indonesia Polytechnic, Telkom Institute of Technology Purwokerto (ITT Purwokerto), and Telkom Jakarta Institute of Technology (ITTJ). The webinar was attended by lecturers and researchers from every university and student.
In his presentation, Dr. Handoko conveyed three main components in research and innovation: superior Human Resources (HR), adequate infrastructure, and budget. “When it comes to research, we need outstanding human resources, but superior human resources without infrastructure will not be able to run well, therefore at this time, BRIN has provided various infrastructures for many fields,” he said.
Furthermore, Handoko said that BRIN provides an Open Platform, where all researchers can utilize all the infrastructure that BRIN provides in BRIN research areas throughout Indonesia.
“The use of infrastructure in BRIN can be utilized by all researchers at no cost, provided that the activities are carried out in collaboration. Because this tool is not only intended for academics but can also be used by students or industry parties, we (BRIN) can facilitate partners so that they can bring up entrepreneurs from involvement in the research process.” Obviously.
Dr. Handoko said that there are several types of research facilities provided by BRIN. Research supports national priorities, research on handling COVID-19, research collaboration centers, sailing days (research activities on research ships), testing of health innovation products, expeditions, acquisition of local knowledge, and research-based startups.
“There are many schemes that may be new, one of which is the research collaboration center scheme, where this is a change from the program that was previously known as the center of excellence for science and technology (PUI). Through this research collaboration center, we see research collaborations with a fairly strong track record,” he said.
Handoko added that this research collaboration center would focus on one particular topic. The researcher will be bound by a long-term contract (about seven years) if the researcher is involved. Later, the team consisted of researchers from campuses and other institutions such as those at BRIN to collaborate with teams related to existing themes. Each year, this program can produce a new doctorate, and this program can also collaborate with the industry.
“I hope that from the program that BRIN provides, there can be much collaboration, especially with campuses within the BUMN APERTI environment. We know that there are quite some collaborations with Tel-U. Therefore, we also want to collaborate with other universities.” he said.
The chairman of APERTI BUMN, the Chancellor of Telkom University, Prof. Adiwijaya, expressed hope that BUMN APERTI can collaborate with BRIN to build collaborative research or science and technology excellence centers together with research and innovation for Indonesia in the future.
“Hopefully, in the future, through the collaboration of APERTI and BRIN, we can produce a superior generation, not only that through this collaboration, the results of future research and innovation can be useful for the progress of the Indonesian nation,” he said.
Prof. Adiwijaya added that through this APERTI, collaboration was possible not only between universities, but the parent company could also collaborate by running MBKM (Merdeka Belajar Kampus Merdeka).
“So it is hoped that by collaborating with our parent company, we can help provide solutions in the form of research and innovation based on problems that exist in the industrial world,” he said. (***)